


hurry home to me (all i do is worry)

by theseourbodies



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Light Angst, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 05:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6691177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/theseourbodies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Danny, shot.</p>
<p>Or: It's been four years, and Steve is more introspective than he was back then. Things make more sense now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hurry home to me (all i do is worry)

**Author's Note:**

> An odd little fic that began because I wanted to write a scenario wherein Danny speaks Italian. This is... not that. General season 1 spoilers, vaguely set in season 4.

The paranoia that haunts the four of them is for big-time things. Things like black SUVs following them a few cars back. Things like Governor Denning calling in favors, and things like unmarked packages on doorsteps-- real things, conspiracy level things. People like Pat Jameson and Wo Fat had taught them to be beyond suspicious of coincidences--so much so that they sometimes forgot to be cautious about the little things, things like seemingly empty houses on wide streets in the middle of the day.

Healthy paranoia has gotten Steve's team out of otherwise impossibly skewed scenarios more times than he can count, but it's impossible to be _on_ all the time without going nuts. Danny has told him-- and god what sick irony is that-- time and again: you either look at the world like a giant, and make it through the small things that you can't see; or like an ant, so focused on the small things that you never see big things coming. As Steve sits by his partner's hospital bed, he thinks about the unnatural silence of the house and the unseasonably shuttered windows--things that should have told him something was wrong before a woman with a mission knocked Danny askew with a shotgun blast-- and he finds himself craving the days when he didn't have the choice; back when he was always the ant with a mission, trusting the giant to bat off the big things he didn't need to see.

Paranoia could have prevented the injury, but thankfully instinct saved Danny's life, sending him twisting away when he'd heard the woman--Maylynne Armstrong, public defender-- rack the gun through the door. He caught the buckshot in the meaty parts of his back and shoulder when Armstrong fired, and Steve pitched himself forward to catch Danny as he fell, spinning from the blow and gasping, "go, dammit, go get her!" while he was on his knees, struggling to stay up and away from the concrete of the stoop, propped on his remaining good arm.

"Like hell," Steve had thought or said; sitting next to Danny's bed, he isn't too concerned with how the sentiment was expressed. He had called in the ‘officer down’ instead and tried to stop the bleeding with his balled up shirt.  
Armstrong had gotten clear for maybe five minutes before the holy fury of Chin Ho Kelly had literally run her off the road; from Kono's account, related to both Steve (who was conscious) and Danny (who, recently stitched and bandaged and drugged all to hell, was only barely so) it had been a thing to behold. Danny, laid out flat on his stomach to keep his body weight off the majority of the pockmarks littering half his back and a nice chunk of a shoulder, had muttered, "totally righteous, man," in the tone that meant he was trying to pun, and tapped his fist laboriously to Kono's. Steve, crashing hard after the adrenaline of Danny being _shot_ , had hated them both a little for it.

Now, it's been hours since then, and Kono has long since left to terrorize their person-of-interest-turned-suspect with her cousin. The world hasn't stopped with Danny, so Steve has been in and out of the bland room to give and receive all kinds of updates and hunt down some food at Chin's insistence. It appears that Armstrong is not the woman they've been looking for, which is disappointing. She was, however, scared enough to shoot first and ask questions later with an unregistered weapon, and that meant quite a lot when she had previously been, by all accounts, no nonsense and by-the-book.

"Though honestly I'm not inclined to care," Chin had admitted during his last quick call.

Kono sounded tired when she'd cut in. "She's not saying much, but her prints are on the gun and the GSR test came back positive. She indicated remorse, but boss," she muttered, "she didn't even ask if Danny was alright."

Now, Steve's just waiting for Danny to wake up so they can go after the connections Armstrong has hesitantly given over in return for--something, possibly reduced jail time for assault. It's ridiculous how grateful he is that he didn't have to make that deal-- he understands completely Kono's unhappy tone when she'd let him know that they'd gotten what they needed. This was Danny, shot; nothing should be worth not prosecuting the person responsible to the fullest extent of the law. Despite how irrational he knew the idea was, Steve still indulges the anger rolling in his gut, lets it keep him warm as he sits and sits and waits for the inevitable to finally happen.

When Danny shivers himself awake, it's so anticlimactic Steve almost misses the clench of his partner's hand against the pillow, the slow blink of his eyes opening. Pupils blown, face smooshed against the stiff hospital pillow, every line on Danny's face is soft and mobile-- until he tries a conscious, deep breath and pain draws marked tension across slack features. Danny's long exhale is all words, which relaxes Steve more than he likes to admit as he leans forward from the back-bending slouch he'd slipped into. It's incomprehensible to Steve, but he hears his name all wrapped up in whatever Danny's saying--it's all he needs.

"Hey Danno, yeah. They knocked you out to get you patched up, said there was a note in the file after the last time."

‘Last time,’ the attending RN had tapped the good stuff into Danny's IV less because of the wound, which was fairly minor but had bled like crazy, and more because Danny had dealt with the pain he could still feel through the local anesthetic by talking--loudly and incessantly. 

Danny grimaces a little. "F'malo," he mutters, and whatever language it is ripples like the water, rolls out of Danny's mouth petulantly in a process that involves his whole entire face. The words don't mean anything to Steve, but Danny's never had trouble making himself understood. Steve reacts, reaches for his partner instinctively before he realizes what he's doing; he checks himself, lets his wayward hand wrap around one of the safety bars instead the hand Danny's still clenching and unclenching rhythmically on the pillow.

A little embarrassed, Steve says quickly, "Good thing a little bit of buckshot never hurt anybody, huh."

The muggy look in Danny's eyes clears as his partner blinks stupidly at Steve, going quickly from the haze of the drug to familiar indignation. "Never hurt--? It certainly does hurt, _Steven_ , and I've seen the scars that prove that you know this."

Steve just rolls his eyes and slips easily into the familiar pattern of distraction that helps Danny when he's stuck in the hospital-- it helps Steve, too, but it's difficult for him to qualify why, so he just rides the high of Danny being well and with it enough to chirp at him. It's different, what each of them needs when they're knocked (shot, blasted, kicked) out of commission. Kono needs to be _out_ as soon as she possibly can, responding to a lingering fear from a time when her wrecked knee had left her hanging and unsure at the peak of her career; Steve's good for that, for busting her out without giving much commentary until he got her wherever she needed to go. Chin likes it quiet, likes to spend time with Kono while he recovers for however long it takes. Steve --who has woken up in too many field hospitals in places he's not allowed to tell anyone about and with no one waiting for him-- doesn't deny himself the quiet pleasure of blinking awake with a familiar face looking on in anticipation. It's best when it's all of them, his whole team; he feels packed in better than any bandage can manage. 

And for Danny it's this: someone there to get him out of his head, something-- someone-- to distract him from his failed, fallible body while he has to let it heal.

"Hurts like a mosquito bite, Danny, come on."

Danny moans and grumbles, and it's all New Jersey, nothing like water at all. Steve lets it roll over him, gives as good as he gets as he taps a fast message to Chin and Kono, letting them know that their resident loud-mouth is awake and pitching his typical fit.

(In private moments stuck one time too many at Danny's bedside, Steve likes to think that he's best, that he gets Danny up'n at'em by power of personality, if nothing else. It gives him a tiny thrill, maybe; maybe it grounds him in something real, and that's why he likes to be the one there. The moments pass quickly, and Steve lets them go-- part of being a giant is letting these things come, the little victories. It helps when nothing else will, when his partner goes down bloody and tells Steve to leave because the job's not done. It helps when Steve instinctively says no when six years ago, four, he would have gone, no question.

It helps when the paranoia fails them, and all they have is instinct.)


End file.
